Prof Alister Ward

Research Activities

Professor Alister Ward leads a research team at Deakin University's new Medical School investigating the genes involved in the development of the immune system, including cytokine receptor signalling components, with the aim of understanding their function, evolution, and role in disease. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, combining bioinformatics, molecular biology and functional genomics approaches in the zebrafish model, the group has recently made some ground-breaking discoveries regarding the function of a clinically-relevant protein, called GCSFR, as well as regarding the origins of adaptive immunity.